I have been involved in many orgs that work to create and promote standards. They generally use the concept of consensus rather than majority vote. All voting is open, and if someone votes against the measure, it is encouraged to allow them to say why. Usually, particularly if the issues are technical, consensus is somewhat obvious when it occurs, but I have seen some bodies deadlocked on an issue for a while even though a majority vote would have decided it. The idea is that in a community group like foswiki, you want people on board rather than splintered off. Marketing issues sometimes ruin the picture because the issues are sometimes more a matter of "black art" or hunches that sometimes are not easy to support with clear evidence.

I don't see voting itself as the issue, but rather who exactly has the right to vote. Without membership dues of some kind, it is difficult to know who has the right. Here, there is perhaps more weight given to those who are strong implementers and know the system well.

Most votes, if any, will be quite suitable for open voting. However, do we also vote for people? There has to be a vote on who will be on the board, no? I think it is good manners to have this vote as a secret vote, as is quite common.

I remember at the last twiki community summit (the one where twiki.net's ceo was embarrased for not knowing the facts, the one that eventuelly led to the continuation of this project as foswiki) we had a secret vote, with the remote participants handig in their vote to an election master. This does not guarantee secrecy for the remote participants, but might be an alternative to using black-box voting tools.

Just looked up the articles where the following is stated in chapter 9. General Assembly 5):
"Unless otherwise decided by the General Assembly, all decisions will be taken openly by show of hands or the equivalent for electronic participation and voting. Unless otherwise provided by the Articles of Association, decisions must be taken with a simple majority of votes cast."

Chapter 10. Duties of the General Assembly :
"The General Assembly elects the Board from the number of Active Members. The people obtaining the relative majority of votes (i.e. plurality) will be elected. Voting has to be anonymous only as far as technically feasible and economically justifiable."

So we can elect the board members openly. It remains the decision about how secret we nevertheless want to be, while using a feasible solution/process, e.g.: